Microsoft released an updated to the Azure Server Management Tools (SMT) and this improves some of the existing tools such as File Explorer and Device Manager. But the big announcement here is, that you now can manage your Hyper-V Server and Virtual Machines directly from Microsoft Azure from where ever you are. This is one of the great examples of using cloud solutions to extend your on premise environment, By using Management as a Service you basically don’t need to updated anything, you just got this new feature available in the Azure portal and you can start using it.

In this update to the Server Management Tools, Microsoft supports the following VM management functionality:

Start/Shutdown/Turn off/Pause/Resume

Save State/Delete Saved State

Take/Apply & rename checkpoints

You can see the Virtual Machines on which are running on the Hyper-V server

Last year I had the chance to speak for the first time at ExpertsLive.nl in Amsterdam. Today I am proud that I will be speaking at ExpertsLive.nl again this year. Next week I will be presenting in two session about Windows Server 2016 together with Michael Rüefli.

Greatest Server OS Hits; best of Server 2016

In this presentation we will guide you through the highly anticipated innovations including: •Hyper-V 2016 features •Nano Server •Storage Spaces Direct •Storage Replica •Windows Server Containers •And more

The future of your datacenter: Nano Server and Container

Nano Server is the future of Windows Server. With Nano Server Microsoft created the foundation for Windows Server for the next 20 year. In this session you will get an overview about Nano Server and see some great live demos how you can deploy, manage and operate Nano Server as well as creating applications for it. Get a better understanding of Nano Server and see how you deploy, manage and operate it.

I just came back from the Microsoft MVP Summit in Redmond and this week I will travel to Rome for the Experts 2 Experts Virtualization Conference. On Friday I will talk about Windows Server 2016 and what is new in the RTM versions.

The best of Windows Server 2016

The best of Windows Server 2016 – RTM. Join this session for the Best of Windows Server 2016 — The New Foundation of your Datacenter. You’ll be one of the first to know about new, exciting improvements that are coming in Windows Server 2016 and how they’ll improve your day-to-day job.

E2EVC Virtualization Conference is a non-commercial, virtualization community event. The main goal of the E2EVC is to bring the best virtualization experts together to exchange knowledge and to establish new connections. E2EVC is a weekend crammed with presentations, Master Classes and discussions delivered by both virtualization vendors product teams and independent experts. I am happy to be part of the community and listen to other industry leading experts.

Finally, Microsoft released Windows Server 2016 and with Windows Server 2016 we also get the first version of Nano Server. I had the opportunity to speak on several different events and conferences about Nano Server, so I tried to create a quick summary of my presentation in this blog post.

Nano Server installation option Just enough OS

Nano Server is a redesign version of Windows Server which is very lightweight, very small footprint and fully remote managed and it is designed to solve some of the datacenter challenges we have today. Nano Server is a headless, 64-bit only deployment option of Windows Server. Microsoft basically removed all components from the base image. Roles and feature are not directly included in the base image and they have to be added while creating a new Nano Server Image or online using PowerShell Package Management. Not even the drivers are included in the base image, since you don’t want the physical drivers in a virtual machines, and you don’t want the virtual drivers on a physical machine This is also the reason why Nano Server does not show up during the installation dialog when you boot the Windows Server 2016 ISO file.

Nano Server Key Scenarios

The first version of Nano Server is designed for the following key scenarios:

But Microsoft also added some other roles like DNS and IIS to the Nano Server and we can expect more roles and features in the future.

In this version Nano Server will of course not replace Windows Server Core and Windows Server (Full or Server with Desktop Experience), but it will be definitely be they way going forward.

Nano Server Footprint

Nano Server has a very small foot print, The default WIM file has a size around 170 MB and if you create a Nano Server VHD or VHDX file it can be only around 400 MB in size. If you add more roles, features and drivers the size of the image gets bigger, but even if you add more stuff the size will be around 800 MB for an Hyper-V server including the Hyper-V role, Failover Clustering Feature, DCB feature, Physical OEM drivers and additional network adapter and storage controller drivers. If you compare Nano Server to Windows Server you can see some of the following changes:

93 percent lower VHD size

92 percent fewer critical bulletins

80 percent fewer reboots

Nano Server Servicing Improvements

Nano Server Deployment Improvements

This not only reduced deployment time and gives you some operational improvements, it also reduces the attack surface by a lot and this is a huge security improvement.

To achieve these results, Microsoft removed some parts of Windows Server such as:

GUI stack

32 bit support (WOW64)

MSI support

RDP

Some default Server Core components

Basic OEM Drivers

and more

Nano Server Management

By removing the User Interface stack, Microsoft made this server to a true headless server, without any login screen or RDP support. By removing the Graphic User Interface, Windows Administrator have to learn new ways how they manage servers, or better use existing ways to manage a Nano Server environment. The answer is simple and is the best practice for managing servers for a long time called Remote Management. Nano Server will offer some advanced remote Management features such as:

With that, existing Remote Management Tools, such as Server Manager and other RSAT tools, will continue to work. But Microsoft also improved PowerShell Remoting and introduces the Azure Serivce for Server Management Tools.

Server Management Tools

This service allows you to manage your servers directly from Azure using a web-based HTML5 portal. I personally think that this could also replace Server Manager and allows you to easily manage non-GUI servers such as Windows Server Core and Nano Server.

Manage Nano Server using System Center

Nano Server can also be managed using System Center Virtual Machine Manager and System Center Operations Manager. With SCVMM you can deploy new Hyper-V and Storage Spaces Direct hosts as well as Virtual Machines.

Deploy Nano Server

To deploy Nano Server as a virtual machine or as a physical host you have to create a new Nano Server Image. For this you have basically have two option. The first one is using the built in Nano Server Image Generator PowerShell module and the second option is the Nano Server Image Builder UI wizard.

Nano Server Image Generator PowerShell module

The Nano Server Image Generator PowerShell module allows you to create new Nano Server Images. You can find this on the Windows Server 2016 media in the Nano Server folder. Here is a quick example how to create a new VHDX using the PowerShell module.

Troubleshooting Nano Server

Nano Server Recovery Console

When you boot Nano Server you can not really login to Nano Server and browse the file system. What you can do is login to the Nano Server Recovery Console which allows you to do some basic tasks:

Shows computer info like Name, IP Configuration, OS Version and more

Reset Networking to DHCP

Reset basic Windows Firewall rules

If the Server is a Hyper-V Server you can see the VM running on the system and remove the Virtual Switch

Sysinternals for Nano Server

There is also a Sysinternals version for Nano Server.

Nano Server over a serial port with Emergency Management Services

Emergency Management Services (EMS) lets you perform basic troubleshooting, get network status, and open console sessions (including CMD/PowerShell) by using a terminal emulator over a serial port. This replaces the need for a keyboard and monitor to troubleshoot a server.

Nano Server Servicing

Windows Server are usually from the Long Term Servicing Branch and have 5 + 5 years of servicing and only get security and quality fixes, no new features. In Windows Server 2016 Server Core and Server with Desktop Experience follow this traditional servicing model. Nano Server on the other hand will be in a new servicing branch called Current Branch for Business (CBB).

Nano Server will not have an LTSB with Windows Server 2016 and therefore not have 5+5 years of servicing

Nano Server installations will have to move forward to future CBB releases of Nano Server to continue to be serviced

Licensing Nano Server will require Software Assurance (SA)

Installation of new CBBs are always controlled by administrators, no forced upgrades

Nano Server Key Wins

Easy and fast to deploy

Lightweight

Easily integrates with our automated approach

Reduces attack surface

Works with existing deployment tools (WDS, SCVMM, SCCM and boot from VHDX)

Reduces operational overhead

Highly stable

Delivers on scale and performance

Conclusion

In my opinion the effort Microsoft does with Nano Server really makes sense and will help Service Providers as well as Enterprise companies to deploy clouds even faster, more secure, more efficient and with less management overhead. Of course it is still early and Nano Server may not fit every case and scenario today, but definitely in the future.

Two weeks Microsoft released Windows Server 2016 and with that the first version of Nano Server. Now in this blog post I want to quickly show you how you can deploy Nano Server in Virtual Machines or on Physical Servers. Nano Server is following the zero-footprint model, so know roles and features as well as no drivers are included by default. With this you always have to create a new Nano Server Image and include the physical drivers or the virtual machine drivers and of course the roles and features.

To create new Nano Server Images you have basically two options, you can choose between the Nano Server Image Generator PowerShell module or the Nano Server Image Builder UI tool. With both you can create VHD, VHDX and WIM files which can be used to deploy Nano Server.

Today I can announce that I will speak at Geekmania 2016 at Friday 04.11.2016 at the Pathé Dietlikon. I this is the 4th time I am speaking at Geekmania, which is a one day event in Switzerland focusing on real world IT topics and Microsoft technologies.

Marcel Zehner from itnetX and me will speak in several different sessions about Windows Server 2016, System Center 2016, Microsoft OMS and Microsoft Azure Stack.

What's new in Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V

With the next version of Microsoft hypervisor Microsoft released some great new features for your Cloud infrastructure. Come to this session to get the details of all the new stuff that is in Hyper-V and learn about how you can play with it “hands-on.” This session includes also the latest updates from the GA Release.

What’s new in Windows Server 2016 Storage

With the next version of Microsoft hypervisor Microsoft released some great new features for your Cloud infrastructure. Microsoft announced several new feature on Windows Server 2016 including a lot of new Storage features, such as Storage Spaces Direct, ReFS, Storage Replica and much more. In this session you get an overview about the new Storage technologies in Windows Server 2016 and Hyper-V.

Last week Microsoft released Windows Server 2016 to the public and at the weekend Microsoft released the Nano Server Image Builder. I already wrote a few blog posts how you can create new Nano Server Images using PowerShell. The Nano Server Image Builder is a UI based wizard to create new Nano Server Images. The Nano Server Image Builder helps you create a custom Nano Server image and bootable USB media with a graphical interface. Based on the inputs you provide, it generates images for deployment and it also creates reusable PowerShell scripts that allow you to create installations of Nano Server.

The Nano Server Image Builder can help you with the following tasks:

Graphical UI to create Nano Server Images

Adding drivers

Choose Windows Server Edition

Adding roles and features

Adding drivers

Adding updates

Configuration of Network Settings

Configuration of Domain settings

Set Remoting Options

Create an ISO file to boot from DVD or BMC (remote connection like HP ILO)

First download and install the Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK) and the Nano Server Image Builder.

About

My Name is Thomas Maurer. Microsoft MVP. Work as a Cloud Architect for itnetX, a consulting and engineering company located in Switzerland. I am focused on Microsoft Technologies, especially Microsoft Cloud & Datacenter solutions based Microsoft System Center, Microsoft Virtualization and Microsoft Azure.